Wendell Cox

Wendell Cox is an American urban policy analyst and academic, known as a leading proponent of the use of the private car over rail projects. He is the principal and sole owner of Wendell Cox Consultancy/Demographia, based in the St. Louis metropolitan region and editor of three web sites, Demographia, The Public Purpose and Urban Tours by Rental Car. Cox is a fellow of numerous conservativethink tanks and a frequent op-ed commenter in conservative US and UK newspapers.

Cox generally opposes planning policies aimed at increasing rail service and density, while favoring planning policies that reinforce and serve the existing transportation and building infrastructure, he believes that existing transportation and building infrastructure reflect what people prefer, while his opponents argue that his positions are based more on a belief that road transport and low density are inherently superior.[citation needed]

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Cox was appointed to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission by Mayor Tom Bradley, and during his 1977 to 1985 service, he was the only member of the Commission who was not an elected official, his amendment to the 1980 Proposition A transit tax measure provided all of the local funding for Los Angeles urban rail projects, including the Blue Line light rail and the Red Line subway. Additional local funding was not obtained until a later 1990 referendum. Nonetheless, he often opposes urban rail systems because he claims that they have not reduced traffic congestion, which he claims is the principal justification that has been used for their construction.

He was appointed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to fill the unexpired term of former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman on the Amtrak Reform Council and served from 1999 until the Council issued its final recommendations in 2002, he is vice president of CODATU, an international organization dedicated to improving urban transport in developing world urban areas.[2] He was also a member of the steering committee of the International Conference on Competition and Ownership in Land Passenger Transport, which held its 10th conference in Australia in 2007.

Cox has also emerged as an opponent of smart growth, especially urban growth boundaries, impact fees, and large lot zoning, claiming they have a tendency to raise housing prices artificially and suppress economic growth.

He has also criticized land use policies in the Portland, Oregon area, noting that the area expanded its urban growth boundary to its intended 2040 area 38 years early due to political pressure and that housing prices have escalated substantially relative to incomes.

Cox's consultancy firm Demographia publishes the 'Demographia International Housing Affordability Ratings' and Rankings early each year;[5] the survey routinely receives wide press coverage upon release, especially in Australia, where it is often used as a principal source of housing affordability ratings. The 7th edition added Hong Kong and received broad coverage in that jurisdiction, including a front page "spread," including charts in the South China Morning Post;[6] the survey has also been criticised because it focuses on only price and income, without reference to financing, and for making a number of assumptions some critics claim to be unfounded.[7] Demographia indicates that its measure, the Median Multiple (median house price divided by median household income) has been recommended by the United Nations and the World Bank;[5] this indicates a continuing issue in housing affordability debates, whether to focus on more permanent structural factors (such as price and income) or whether to include more volatile factors, such as financing costs.

Demographia is also publisher of the a comprehensive listing of urban area (agglomeration) population and densities;[8] the 6th edition published in 2010 includes all agglomerations with 500,000 or more population.

Cox believes that the goal of public transportation systems should be to provide mobility to those who do not have access to a car, not to reduce traffic congestion;[9] as such he believes that agencies should seek to obtain maximum value for every dollar of taxes and fees expended, using whatever transportation choices maximize ridership. He believes that competitive approaches (principally competitive contracting and competitive tendering) are most effective in this regard.

Cox's transport site "The Public Purpose" claims it is not opposed to urban rail, but many of Cox's opponents strongly disagree, it instead argues that it is opposed to waste. The site claims that it would cost less to lease every new light-rail rider a luxury car than to build light-rail projects themselves[citation needed]; this has entered the planning lexicon as the "Jaguar Argument."[citation needed] He has suggested a correlation between personal mobility and income, he says public transportation does a "good job of getting people downtown and serving the low-income poor moving around the core, but it can't do any more than that." In response, representatives of the Sierra Club have called Wendell Cox an "itinerant anti-public transportation gun-for-hire."[10]

His more recent transport activities oppose the claim that road congestion reduction is obtained from improving urban mass transit. Among other things, he claims his aim is to improve urban mobility through performance programs that obtain the greatest reduction in travel-delay hours for the public funding available.[citation needed] Cox claims to be "'pro-choice' with respect to urban development," and asserts that "people should be allowed to live and work where they like," consistent with the Lone Mountain Compact, of which he was a signatory.[citation needed]

Conservatism is a political and social philosophy promoting traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization. The central tenets of conservatism include tradition, hierarchy and property rights. Conservatives seek to preserve a range of institutions such as religion, parliamentary government, property rights, with the aim of emphasizing social stability and continuity; the more extreme elements—reactionaries—oppose modernism and seek a return to "the way things were". The first established use of the term in a political context originated in 1818 with François-René de Chateaubriand during the period of Bourbon Restoration that sought to roll back the policies of the French Revolution. Associated with right-wing politics, the term has since been used to describe a wide range of views. There is no single set of policies regarded as conservative because the meaning of conservatism depends on what is considered traditional in a given place and time, thus conservatives from different parts of the world—each upholding their respective traditions—may disagree on a wide range of issues.

Edmund Burke, an 18th-century politician who opposed the French Revolution but supported the American Revolution, is credited as one of the main theorists of conservatism in Great Britain in the 1790s. According to Quintin Hogg, the chairman of the British Conservative Party in 1959: "Conservatism is not so much a philosophy as an attitude, a constant force, performing a timeless function in the development of a free society, corresponding to a deep and permanent requirement of human nature itself". In contrast to the tradition-based definition of conservatism, some political theorists such as Corey Robin define conservatism in terms of a general defense of social and economic inequality. From this perspective, conservatism is less an attempt to uphold traditional institutions and more, "a meditation on—and theoretical rendition of—the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, trying to win it back". Liberal conservatism incorporates the classical liberal view of minimal government intervention in the economy.

Individuals should be free to participate in the market and generate wealth without government interference. However, individuals cannot be depended on to act responsibly in other spheres of life, therefore liberal conservatives believe that a strong state is necessary to ensure law and order and social institutions are needed to nurture a sense of duty and responsibility to the nation. Liberal conservatism is a variant of conservatism, influenced by liberal stances; as these latter two terms have had different meanings over time and across countries, liberal conservatism has a wide variety of meanings. The term referred to the combination of economic liberalism, which champions laissez-faire markets, with the classical conservatism concern for established tradition, respect for authority and religious values, it contrasted itself with classical liberalism, which supported freedom for the individual in both the economic and social spheres. Over time, the general conservative ideology in many countries adopted economic liberal arguments and the term liberal conservatism was replaced with conservatism.

This is the case in countries where liberal economic ideas have been the tradition such as the United States and are thus considered conservative. In other countries where liberal conservative movements have entered the political mainstream, such as Italy and Spain, the terms liberal and conservative may be synonymous; the liberal conservative tradition in the United States combines the economic individualism of the classical liberals with a Burkean form of conservatism. A secondary meaning for the term liberal conservatism that has developed in Europe is a combination of more modern conservative views with those of social liberalism; this has developed as an opposition to the more collectivist views of socialism. This involves stressing what are now conservative views of free market economics and belief in individual responsibility, with social liberal views on defence of civil rights and support for a limited welfare state. In continental Europe, this is sometimes translated into English as social conservatism.

Conservative liberalism is a variant of liberalism that combines liberal values and policies with conservative stances, or more the right-wing of the liberal movement. The roots of conservative liberalism are found at the beginning of the history of liberalism; until the two World Wars, in most European countries the political class was formed by conservative liberals, from Germany to Italy. Events after World War I brought the more radical version of classical liberalism to a more conservative type of liberalism. Libertarian conservatism describes certain political ideologies within the United States and Canada which combine libertarian economic issues with aspects of conservatism, its four main branches are constitutionalism, paleolibertarianism, small government conservatism and Christian libertarianism. They differ from paleoconservatives, in that they are in favor of more personal and economic freedom. Agorists such as Samuel Edward Konkin III labeled libertarian conservatism right-libertarianism.

In contrast to paleoconservatives, libertarian conservatives support strict laissez-faire policies such as free trade, opposition to any national bank and opposition to business regulations. They are vehemently opposed to environmental regulations, corporate welfare and other areas of economic intervention. Many conservatives in the United States, be

London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south-east of England, at the head of its 50-mile estuary leading to the North Sea, London has been a major settlement for two millennia. Londinium was founded by the Romans; the City of London, London's ancient core − an area of just 1.12 square miles and colloquially known as the Square Mile − retains boundaries that follow its medieval limits. The City of Westminster is an Inner London borough holding city status. Greater London is governed by the Mayor of the London Assembly. London is considered to be one of the world's most important global cities and has been termed the world's most powerful, most desirable, most influential, most visited, most expensive, sustainable, most investment friendly, most popular for work, the most vegetarian friendly city in the world. London exerts a considerable impact upon the arts, education, fashion, healthcare, professional services and development, tourism and transportation.

London ranks 26 out of 300 major cities for economic performance. It is one of the largest financial centres and has either the fifth or sixth largest metropolitan area GDP, it is the most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the busiest city airport system as measured by passenger traffic. It is the leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. London's universities form the largest concentration of higher education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted three modern Summer Olympic Games. London has a diverse range of people and cultures, more than 300 languages are spoken in the region, its estimated mid-2016 municipal population was 8,787,892, the most populous of any city in the European Union and accounting for 13.4% of the UK population. London's urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census.

Modern scientific analyses of the name must account for the origins of the different forms found in early sources Latin, Old English, Welsh, with reference to the known developments over time of sounds in those different languages. It is agreed; this was adapted into Latin as Londinium and borrowed into Old English, the ancestor-language of English. The toponymy of the Common Brythonic form is much debated. A prominent explanation was Richard Coates's 1998 argument that the name derived from pre-Celtic Old European *lowonida, meaning "river too wide to ford". Coates suggested that this was a name given to the part of the River Thames which flows through London. However, most work has accepted a Celtic origin for the name, recent studies have favoured an explanation along the lines of a Celtic derivative of a proto-Indo-European root *lendh-, combined with the Celtic suffix *-injo- or *-onjo-. Peter Schrijver has suggested, on these grounds, that the name meant'place that floods'; until 1889, the name "London" applied to the City of London, but since it has referred to the County of London and Greater London.

"London" is sometimes written informally as "LDN". In 1993, the remains of a Bronze Age bridge were found on the south foreshore, upstream of Vauxhall Bridge; this bridge either reached a now lost island in it. Two of those timbers were radiocarbon dated to between 1750 BC and 1285 BC. In 2010 the foundations of a large timber structure, dated to between 4800 BC and 4500 BC, were found on the Thames's south foreshore, downstream of Vauxhall Bridge; the function of the mesolithic structure is not known. Both structures are on the south bank. Although there is evidence of scattered Brythonic settlements in the area, the first major settlement was founded by the Romans about four years after the invasion

The Conservatoire national des arts et métiers is a doctoral degree-granting higher education establishment and Grande école in engineering, operated by the French government, dedicated to providing education and conducting research for the promotion of science and industry. It has a large museum of inventions accessible to the public, it was founded on 10 October 1794, during the French Revolution. It was first proposed by AbbéHenri Grégoire as a "depository for machines, tools, drawings and books in all the areas of the arts and trades"; the deserted Saint-Martin-des-Champs Priory was selected as the site of collection, which formally opened in 1802. Charged with the collection of inventions, it has since become an educational institution. At the present time, it is known as a continuing education school for adults seeking engineering and business degrees, proposing evening classes in a variety of topics; the collection of inventions is now operated by the Musée des Arts et Métiers. The original Foucault pendulum was exhibited as part of the collection, but was moved to the Panthéon in 1995 during museum renovation.

It was reinstalled in the Musée des Arts et Métiers. On 6 April 2010, the cable suspending the original pendulum bob snapped causing irreparable damage to the pendulum and to the marble flooring of the museum; the novel Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco deals with this establishment, as the Foucault pendulum hung in the museum plays a great role in the storyline. The novel was published in 1989 prior to the pendulum being moved back to the Panthéon during museum reconstruction; the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers is located at 292 rue Saint Martin, in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris, in the historical area of the city named Le Marais. The Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers is a public institution of the French government, in the scientific and professional fields, with the status of "Grand Etablissement". Under the supervision of the Ministry of Higher Education, it has 3 missions: Training throughout life, it is implemented in more than 150 cities in France and abroad. Cnam's motto is "Omnes docet ubique", which means "He teaches everyone everywhere."

Jean Ferrat, alumnus of the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, singer-songwriter. Abbé Grégoire, founder of the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers. Jean-Baptiste Say, alumnus of the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, classical economist, professor with the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers and the Collège de France. Alexandre Vandermonde, mathematician. From 1794 on, Vandermonde was member of the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, examiner with the École polytechnique, professor with the École Normale Supérieure. Jacques de Vaucanson, famous engineer, gave his personal collection to the CNAM as well as his name to an adjacent street. Léon Vaudoyer, architecte of the CNAM building during the nineteenth century, together with the Institut de France building. Jean Prouvé, French metal worker, self-taught architect and designer, CNAM professor from 1957 to 1970. Alain Wisner Vandermonde: secret society of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers. Écoles de l'an III scientifiques Michel Nusimovici, Les écoles de l'an III, 2010 Official website Official website Official website CNAM lebanon

By April 6, 1938, George Pepperdine College was accredited by the Northwest Association. Pepperdine had built a fortune founding and developing the Western Auto Supply Company, which he started with a $5 investment, but his prosperity led to his greater ambition to discover "how humanity can be helped most with the means entrusted to care. Considered it wrong to build up a great fortune and use it selfishly." Pepperdine voiced his twofold objective for the college that bore his name, "First, we want to provide first-class accredited academic training in the liberal arts... Secondly, we are dedicated to a greater goal—that of building in the student a Christ-like life, a love for the church, a passion for the souls of mankind." By the 1960s, the young college faced serious problems. The area around the Vermont Avenue campus developed issues with urban decay; the situation exploded in the 1965 Watts Riots. In 1969 activists in the Watts area threatened to burn down the campus. In addition, the Vermont Avenue campus was running out of room to expand.

In 1967, the school began planning to move the undergraduate campus and a committee was formed to look at alternative locations, including sites in Valencia, Orange County, Ventura County and Westlake Village. Pepperdine favored the Westlake Village location until the Adamson-Rindge family, who owned hundreds of acres near Malibu, offered 138 acres of land. Despite concerns over building costs on the mountainous site, the school decided to move forward based on its prime location and potential for raising donations. Construction began on April 13, 1971 and the new campus opened for student enrollment in September 1972; the campus and many of its buildings were planned by Los Angeles-based architect and urban planner William Pereira. The old campus was sold to Crenshaw Christian Center, whose minister, Frederick K. C. Price oversaw construction of the "FaithDome," the largest domed-church in the United States, seating over 10,000. Pepperdine gained university status in 1971 when the school of law was added and the business and education departments became separate schools.

In the 1980s, Pepperdine rose to prominence as one of the United States' leading centers of conservative politics, attracting many conservative-leaning professors from nearby UCLA and USC. Prominent conservatives on the Pepperdine faculty have included Bruce Herschensohn, Ben Stein, Kenneth Starr, Arthur Laffer, Douglas Kmiec, Daniel Pipes. In 1985, 1993, 1996, massive brushfires threatened the campus with destruction, but firefighters protected all structures. On October 21, 2007, fast-moving wildfires forced campus residents to relocate and shelter in the Firestone Field house and Cafeteria, plus evacuations of local homes and businesses. Another November 2007 fire in Corral Canyon, accidentally set off by a group of Los Angeles youths, caused an evacuation of the Drescher Campus. However, most students were off-campus for the Thanksgiving holiday; the campus was again threatened by the Woolsey Fire in November 2018. Batsell Baxter Hugh M. Tiner M. Norvel Young William S. Banowsky Howard A. White David Davenport Andrew K. Benton The main campus is located among several ridges that overlook the Pacific Ocean and the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California.

It is considered one of the most beautiful college campuses in the world in terms of scenery and architecture, has been described as "a place that looks more like a beach resort than a private university." The main campus entrance road ascends a steep, well-groomed grassy slope past a huge stylized cross known as the Phillips Theme Tower, symbolizing the university's dedication to its original Christian mission. Most buildings were constructed in a reinterpretation of Mediterranean Revival Style architecture; the majority of the construction on the main campus was completed in 1973. There are views of the Pacific Ocean, Catalina Island, Palos Verdes Peninsula, Long Beach and the westside of Los Angeles from numerous points. Alumni Park is located on the campus, it is a 30-acre expanse of lawns, hills and coral trees overlooking Pacific Coast Highway and the Pacific Ocean. Landscape architects Armstrong and Scharfman were responsible for the campus green space plann

The Wall Street Journal is a U. S. business-focused, English-language international daily newspaper based in New York City. The Journal, along with its Asian and European editions, is published six days a week by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp; the newspaper is published in online. The Journal has been printed continuously since its inception on July 8, 1889, by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, Charles Bergstresser; the Wall Street Journal is one of the largest newspapers in the United States by circulation, with a circulation of about 2.475 million copies as of June 2018, compared with USA Today's 1.7 million. The Journal publishes the luxury news and lifestyle magazine WSJ, launched as a quarterly but expanded to 12 issues as of 2014. An online version was launched in 1996, accessible only to subscribers since it began; the newspaper is notable for its award-winning news coverage, has won 37 Pulitzer Prizes. The editorial pages of the Journal are conservative in their position. The"Journal" editorial board has promoted fringe views on the science of climate change, acid rain, ozone depletion, as well as on the health harms of second-hand smoke and asbestos.

The first products of Dow Jones & Company, the publisher of the Journal, were brief news bulletins, nicknamed "flimsies", hand-delivered throughout the day to traders at the stock exchange in the early 1880s. They were aggregated in a printed daily summary called the Customers' Afternoon Letter. Reporters Charles Dow, Edward Jones, Charles Bergstresser converted this into The Wall Street Journal, published for the first time on July 8, 1889, began delivery of the Dow Jones News Service via telegraph. In 1896, The "Dow Jones Industrial Average" was launched, it was the first of several indices of bond prices on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1899, the Journal's Review & Outlook column, which still runs today, appeared for the first time written by Charles Dow. Journalist Clarence Barron purchased control of the company for US$130,000 in 1902. Barron and his predecessors were credited with creating an atmosphere of fearless, independent financial reporting—a novelty in the early days of business journalism.

In 1921, Barron's, the United States's premier financial weekly, was founded. Barron died in 1928, a year before Black Tuesday, the stock market crash that affected the Great Depression in the United States. Barron's descendants, the Bancroft family, would continue to control the company until 2007; the Journal took its modern shape and prominence in the 1940s, a time of industrial expansion for the United States and its financial institutions in New York. Bernard Kilgore was named managing editor of the paper in 1941, company CEO in 1945 compiling a 25-year career as the head of the Journal. Kilgore was the architect of the paper's iconic front-page design, with its "What's News" digest, its national distribution strategy, which brought the paper's circulation from 33,000 in 1941 to 1.1 million at the time of Kilgore's death in 1967. Under Kilgore, in 1947, the paper won its first Pulitzer Prize for William Henry Grimes's editorials. In 1967, Dow Jones Newswires began a major expansion outside of the United States that put journalists in every major financial center in Europe, Latin America and Africa.

In 1970, Dow Jones bought the Ottaway newspaper chain, which at the time comprised nine dailies and three Sunday newspapers. The name was changed to "Dow Jones Local Media Group".1971 to 1997 brought about a series of launches and joint ventures, including "Factiva", The Wall Street Journal Asia, The Wall Street Journal Europe, the WSJ.com website, Dow Jones Indexes, MarketWatch, "WSJ Weekend Edition". In 2007, News Corp. acquired Dow Jones. WSJ. A luxury lifestyle magazine, was launched in 2008. A complement to the print newspaper, The Wall Street Journal Online, was launched in 1996 and has allowed access only by subscription from the beginning. In 2003, Dow Jones began to integrate reporting of the Journal's print and online subscribers together in Audit Bureau of Circulations statements. In 2007, it was believed to be the largest paid-subscription news site on the Web, with 980,000 paid subscribers. Since online subscribership has fallen, due in part to rising subscription costs, was reported at 400,000 in March 2010.

In May 2008, an annual subscription to the online edition of The Wall Street Journal cost $119 for those who do not have subscriptions to the print edition. By June 2013, the monthly cost for a subscription to the online edition was $22.99, or $275.88 annually, excluding introductory offers. On November 30, 2004, Oasys Mobile and The Wall Street Journal released an app that would allow users to access content from the Wall Street Journal Online via their mobile phones. Many of The Wall Street Journal news stories are available through free online newspapers that subscribe to the Dow Jones syndicate. Pulitzer Prize–winning stories from 1995 are available free on the Pulitzer web site. In September 2005, the Journal launched a weekend edition, delivered to all subscribers, which marked a return to Saturday publication after a lapse of some 50 years; the move was designed in part to attract more consumer advertising. In 2005, the Journal reported a readership profile of about 60 percent top management, an average income of $191,000, an average household net worth of $2.1 million, an average age of 55.

In 2007, the Journal launched a worldwide expansion of its website to include major foreign-language editions. The p

In 1972, he was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives as a Democrat representing District 11 in Multnomah County. He won re-election in 1974 and 1976, continued representing Portland and Multnomah County until the 1979 legislative session. From 1975 to 1981 he served on the board of Portland Community College. Following his time in the Oregon Legislature, he served on the Multnomah County Commission from 1979 to 1986, he lost a race for Portland City Council to Margaret Strachan in 1981. He left the county commission in March 1986 to run again for city council. Blumenauer was elected to the Portland City Council in May 1986, his first term began in January 1987, he remained on the council until 1996. From the start of his first council term, he was named the city's Commissioner of Public Works, which made him the city council member in charge of the Portland Bureau of Transportation. During his time on the city council Blumenauer was appointed by Oregon GovernorNeil Goldschmidt to the state's commission on higher education, he served on that board in 1990 and 1991.

In 1992, Blumenauer was defeated by Vera Katz in an open race for mayor of Portland—to date, only the second time that Blumenauer has lost an election. At the time he was described as "the man who knows the most about how Portland works", but left local politics to run for Congress. After winning election to Congress, he resigned from the city council in May 1996, to take up his new office. In 2010, Earl Blumenauer received The Ralph Lowell Award for outstanding contributions to Public Television. Blumenauer was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1996 in a special election to fill the vacancy caused by the election of then-U. S. Representative Ron Wyden to the U. S. Senate, he received 69 % of the vote. He was elected to a full term that November, has been re-elected eight more times by wide margins in what has long been the most Democratic district in Oregon, he was most reelected in 2014, winning 72.3% of the vote over Republican James Buchal, who won 19.6%. Blumenauer served as Oregon campaign chair for both John Kerry's and Barack Obama's presidential campaigns.

In Congress, Blumenauer is noted for his advocacy for mass transit, such as Portland's MAX Light Rail and the Portland Streetcar, and, as a strong supporter of legislation that promotes bicycle commuting, cycles from his Washington residence to the Capitol and to the White House for meetings. Among the bills that Blumenauer has sponsored that have become law are the Bunning-Bereuter-Blumenauer Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2004 and the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005. In addition, the Legal Timber Protection Act passed as part of the 2008 Farm Bill, while the Bicycle Commuter Act passed with the 2008 bailout bill, he is active in pressuring the United States to take greater action on the Darfur conflict. In the political aftermath of Hurricane Katrina Blumenauer noted that he was among those who had pointed out the vulnerability of New Orleans and encouraged Congress to help that city and the gulf coast get better prepared: September 15, 2004: Mr. Speaker have we recovered from Hurricane Hugo and we are seeing Hurricane Ivan pose the threat that has long been feared by those in Louisiana, that this might represent the loss of the City of New Orleans.

Located 15 feet below sea level, there is the potential of a 30-foot wall of water putting at risk $100 billion of infrastructure and industry and countless lives. January 26, 2005: Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to view the devastation in Southeast Asia as a result of the tsunami; as appalled as I was by what I saw, I must confess that my thoughts drifted back to the United States. What would have happened if last September, Hurricane Ivan had veered 40 miles to the west, devastating the city of New Orleans? One scenario would have had a tsunami-like 30-foot wall of water hitting the city, causing thousands of deaths and $100 billion in damage... The experience of Southeast Asia should convince us all of the urgent need for congressional action to prevent wide-scale loss of life and economic destruction at home and abroad. Prevention and planning will pay off. Maybe the devastation will encourage us to act before disaster strikes. Blumenauer is a supporter of the World Trade Organization and has voted for "free trade" agreements with Peru, Singapore, Chile as well as Africa and the Caribbean.

St. Louis is an independent city and major inland port in the U.S. state of Missouri. It is situated along the western bank of the Mississippi River, which marks Missouri's border with Illinois. The Missouri River merges with the Mississippi River just north of the city. These two rivers …

The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major political parties in the United States; the other is its historic rival, the Democratic Party. — The GOP was founded in 1854 by opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which had expanded slavery into U.S …

Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, is the most populous county in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of the U.S. state of California and is the most populous county in the United States, with more than 10 million inhabitants as of 2017. As such, it is the largest non–state …

Los Angeles at night. Aerial photo taken from San Pedro, looking North.

Thomas J. Bradley was an American politician and former police officer who served as the 38th Mayor of Los Angeles from 1973 to 1993. He has been the only African American Mayor of Los Angeles, and his 20 years in office mark the longest tenure by any mayor …

Newton Leroy Gingrich is an American politician, author, and historian who served as the 50th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. A member of the Republican Party, he was the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 6th congressional …

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the largest country in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country by total area. The neighbouring countries …

Pepperdine University is a private research university affiliated with the Churches of Christ and located near Malibu, California. It is the location for Seaver College, the School of Law, the Graduate School of Education and Psychology, the Graziadio Business School, and the School of Public …

California State University, Los Angeles is a public university in Los Angeles, California. It is part of the California State University system. Cal State LA offers 129 bachelor's degrees, 112 master's degrees, and three doctoral degrees: a Ph.D. in special education, Doctor …

Conservatism is a political and social philosophy promoting traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization. The central tenets of conservatism include tradition, human imperfection, hierarchy, authority, and property rights. Conservatives seek to preserve a range of …

Portland is the largest and most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon and the seat of Multnomah County. It is a major port in the Willamette Valley region of the Pacific Northwest, at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers. As of 2017, Portland had an estimated population of …

The White Eagle saloon (c. 1910), one of many in Portland that had reputed ties to illegal activities such as gambling rackets and prostitution

Jaguar is the luxury vehicle brand of Jaguar Land Rover, a British multinational car manufacturer with its headquarters in Whitley, Coventry, England. Jaguar Cars was the company that was responsible for the production of Jaguar cars until its operations were fully merged with those …

The United States of America, commonly known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's …

Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres, making it the world's …

New Zealand is a sovereign island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses—the North Island, and the South Island —and around 600 smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some …

The University of Sydney is an Australian public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it was Australia's first university and is regarded as one of the world's leading universities. The university is colloquially known as one of …

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in the colony of Upper Canada …

A Sopwith Camel aircraft rests on the Front Campus lawn in 1918, during World War I.

The University of Paris, metonymically known as the Sorbonne, was a university in Paris, France, active 1150–1793, and 1806–1970. — Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated with the cathedral school of Notre Dame de Paris, it was considered the …

The Sorbonne covered by snow.

Meeting of doctors at the University of Paris. From a 16th-century miniature.

London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south-east of England, at the head of its 50-mile estuary leading to the North Sea, London has been a major settlement for two millennia. Londinium was …

The Washington Post is a major American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. with a particular emphasis on national politics and the federal government. It has the largest circulation in the Washington metropolitan area. Its slogan "Democracy Dies in …

Front page of June 8, 2016

The previous headquarters of The Washington Post on 15th Street NW in Washington, D.C.

The Wall Street Journal is a U.S. business-focused, English-language international daily newspaper based in New York City. The Journal, along with its Asian and European editions, is published six days a week by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp. The newspaper is published in the …

Cover of The Wall Street Journal (March 23, 2016) with the headline story reporting on the 2016 Brussels bombings

Front page of the first issue of The Wall Street Journal, July 8, 1889

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper which has been published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It has the fourth-largest circulation among United States newspapers, and is the largest U.S. newspaper not headquartered on the East Coast …

The Washington Times is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. that covers general interest topics with a particular emphasis on national politics. Its broadsheet daily edition is distributed throughout the District of Columbia and in parts of Maryland and Virginia. A weekly …

George Walker Bush is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. He had previously served as the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. — Bush was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and grew up in Texas. After …

The Miami Herald is a daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a city in western Miami-Dade County and the Miami metropolitan area, several miles west of downtown Miami. Founded in 1903, it is the second largest newspaper in South Florida, serving …

Cover of the Miami Herald (June 13, 2016), with the headline story reporting on the nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida

The Conservatoire national des arts et métiers is a doctoral degree-granting higher education establishment and Grande école in engineering, operated by the French government, dedicated to providing education and …

The main entrance.

Tennis Court Oath (1789) by David : the abbot Henri Grégoire, was a founding member of "Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers", is shown with abbot black clothes in the drawing center.

Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States federal government, as well as other public affairs …

Sen. Robert Byrd (right), C-SPAN's founder Brian Lamb (left) and Paul FitzPatrick flip the switch for C-SPAN2 on June 2, 1986. FitzPatrick was C-SPAN president at the time.

C-SPAN broadcasts the beginning of the 112th Congress on January 5, 2011

Christine Todd Whitman is an American Republican politician and author who served as the 50th Governor of New Jersey, from 1994 to 2001, and was the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in the administration of President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003 …

FEMA Director James Lee Witt meets with Governor Whitman and other New Jersey officials to discuss the response to Hurricane Floyd, September 21, 1999.

The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded as the Charles Koch Foundation in 1974 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries. In July 1976, the …

Cato Institute building in Washington, D.C.

John A. Allison IV speaking at the 2014 International Students for Liberty Conference (ISFLC)

Lobbying, persuasion, or interest representation is the act of attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of officials in their daily life, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying is done by many types of people, associations and organized groups …

An urban growth boundary, or UGB, is a regional boundary, set in an attempt to control urban sprawl by, in its simplest form, mandating that the area inside the boundary be used for urban development and the area outside be preserved in its natural state or used for agriculture. Legislating for an …

Earl Francis Blumenauer is the U.S. Representative for Oregon's 3rd congressional district, serving since 1996. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district includes most of Portland east of the Willamette River. He previously spent over 20 years as a public …

The Daily Telegraph, commonly referred to simply as The Telegraph, is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was founded by Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855 as Daily Telegraph & Courier …

The National Post is a Canadian English-language newspaper. The paper is the flagship publication of Postmedia Network, and is published Tuesdays through Saturdays. It was founded in 1998 by Conrad Black. Once distributed nationally, it later began publishing a daily edition in the provinces of …

Reuters is an international news organization. It is a division of Thomson Reuters and has nearly 200 locations around the world. Until 2008, the Reuters news agency formed part of an independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data. Since the …

The Heritage Foundation is an American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. primarily geared towards public policy. The foundation took a leading role in the conservative movement during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose policies were taken from …